“The Counselor” is a very strong film from Ridley Scott — a director who hasn’t done a very strong film since “American Gangster” in 2007.

Brad Pitt, as a mysterious dealmaker, and Michael Fassbender, as a lawyer who’s gotten himself into trouble, give us two smart characters delivering crackling dialogue.

The film, jumping around between Juarez, Amsterdam, London and Chicago, seems, at first, to be about couples. We’re introduced, in a hot and heavy sex scene, to a successful lawyer, who is only addressed as Counselor or referred to as the counselor (Fassbender), and nice-girl Laura (Penelope Cruz) who are deeply in love.

Then we meet the wealthy and probably dangerous Reiner (Javier Bardem) and the bejeweled, tattooed, and shiny silver-fingernailed Malkina, who you know right away is someone you don’t want to cross. They’re probably more in lust than in love. Then there are the two domesticated cheetahs (I’ve forgotten their names) who like nothing more than a romp in the desert, hunting down jackrabbits together.

Cormac McCarthy’s (“No Country for Old Men”) dialogue gives us lots of quiet but earnest talk about women and murder and drugs. His plotting keeps a few stories spinning on the periphery, but settles upon one on the drug trade. The film is like one of those late-period Westerns where the law has finally taken over the land and the outlaws’ days are numbered. The people here are worried that the drug wars will stop, and if they do, their illegal business will dry up.

It’s in this climate that the counselor finds himself. He needs money, and has decided to fall in with a crowd that will help him get it quickly, if not cleanly. When he first sits down to chat about it with a bruised and battered Westray (Pitt) and is told something to the effect of “you should’ve seen the other guy,” it’s clear that Westray is another person not to mess with.

This is a grim movie in which violence hits fast, hard and unexpectedly.

Some viewers will complain of murky plotting, of certain things not being fully explained. But that’s OK. One of the best things about the film is that it never gives you time to relax; you’re always wondering about what exactly is going on, what will happen next, and who else will be dragged into its ever-growing web.